


Moving Forward

by navaan



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Friendship, Post-Iron Man 3, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After <i>Iron Man 3</i> Tony fixes himself, but people around him still have to figure that out. Everybody seems to notice the absence of the arc reactor more than he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving Forward

The first thing he saw, when he stepped out of the room he had woken up in, was Pepper. He knew she had been here, of course, watching and waiting while he'd been in surgery, but actually seeing her standing right there, arms folded protectively around herself and looking stressed, was strangely _nice_ , strangely unsettling.

“You look pale,” he commented, slightly slurring the words, still not all there yet and feeling weird, his voice sounding as if it was coming from far away even in his own head.

“Should you even be awake?” she asked and looked at him, surprised and nervously worrying her bottom lip.

He tried to muster up an honest smile through the haze of the drugs that were still running through his system. Not long and Extremis would have dealt with that, too. His smile must have been at least halfway successful, because Pepper mustered up a smile of her own and reached for his hand. “I'm okay,” he slurred.

“I know.”

“And I have a working heart.”

“I knew that _before_.” From the way she was pursing her lips he knew that she was trying to not let her worry show, but was instead trying to cover it up with slight sarcasm. He loved it. Loved every smile and every minute they had together.

“Of course, you did. You're the one who found it in the first place.”

“I just found proof that there was one. Not the same thing. It was there all along and you know that,” she said, leading him slowly down the corridor, looking back over her shoulder for the doctors. “Is this really a good idea? Shouldn't you stay for a few more hours at least?”

“Extremis will do the rest. You know it, Pepper. We've figured this out. Just relax. Let's go home.”

“Just relax,” she repeated, too used to him to even argue or comment on it any further just now, but frowning as she watched him walk towards the exit.

Happy took them home. And predictably Tony was more tired than he wanted to admit. Pepper just curled up against him tiredly and carefully touched the front of his shirt where now she could only feel bandages beneath the soft fabric, but where once she would have felt the hard edges of the arc reactor.

A part of him for so long, but no longer needed.

He felt lighter, happy that _finally_ he'd not just found a way to work around a problem, but had found a way to fix it once and for all – and safe Pepper and put himself right in the process.

“Does it hurt?” Pepper asked.

She was probably talking about the healing tissue beneath the bandage, but Extremis was already working away to heal the physical wound. “Not anymore,” he whispered, and spoke entirely of the arc reactor.

At home Pepper tried to make him take things slow. She even took the day off to make sure that he didn't sneak off, down to one of his labs or out to the city. “There's still so much to do, Pepper,” he said sounding whiny even to his own ears. “I never really used the place down here! I have to make it mine. You know? Personalizing it. Making room for the kids.”

“Your robots will do fine without you for a day.” She smiled at him indulgently and walked towards the bed. He followed, drawn like a moth to a flame, watching her sit down on the edge and look up at him with a smile. “Do I have to persuade you to spend the day in bed - with me?”

He didn't really _need_ to be persuaded.

Extremis was singing in his head and if he wanted to he would be able to do most of the work he wanted done without ever leaving this room – or the bed. But Pepper was aware of that and now she was looking at him expectantly and _smiling_. It was so good to see her smile.

“I know we're healing fast now. I know it's not a big deal anymore. But can we just take things slow for today? Just because although it's not a big deal, it's still big for me.”

He met her eyes, read all the things she wasn't saying there and nodded, slowly walking over and sitting down beside her.

“Let's take it slow then,” he said with a sigh.

“Thank you.”

This probably meant he'd actually have to take a rest and kinky sex was out of the question. He sighed again, but smiled when Pepper chuckled, knowing exactly what he'd been thinking just now.

* * *

When he stepped out into the room he'd tentatively redesigned as shared living area, he hadn't really expected to find Bruce there. JARVIS had informed him that Dr. Banner had spend the night in his lab, working on something or other, and because Tony knew how he got when he was tracking an engineering or any other uncrackable problem, he had expected that if he wanted to ever come across Bruce he'd have to go down and actually _look_ for him. He had certainly not expected him to just sit here, calm and _not_ working.

“You're a trouble magnet,” Bruce told him without preamble and without really looking up, rubbing at his eyes with one hand instead. “I saw your other house explode on the news. With you in it. Does this mean you're living here now?”

Tony grimaced a little. “We haven't hashed that out yet. It's not that I lack houses or living space across the country.”

Bruce smiled at him, still calm and so very serene that it was hard to imagine that this was actually someone who had anger management issues of _epic_ and very _green_ proportions.

Then Bruce looked away from his face again, further down, his eyes settling on his chest and frowned. Tony knew that normally the arch reactor would have been visible through the thin dark fabric of the t-shirt. “What happened to your...?”

“Complicated.”

“But your heart...”

“Actually let me tell you a story,” he said and flung himself down across from Bruce. He really needed to tell someone and now that he was here and Bruce was here, maybe it was time to give someone who hadn't been involved the full and unabridged story – someone who wouldn't judge him and just listen.

* * *

Fury turned up next with Agent Romanoff on his heals to have some of his questions answered about what S.H.I.E.L.D. was apparently now calling “the recent Stark incident”, extending an invitation to spend some S.H.I.E.L.D. style quality time with them on the Helicarrier.

The scenario wasn't new and when a folder was dropped in front of him, he was seriously asking himself what – out of all the mistakes he'd made recently and years ago and probably just this morning – would be held against him today. Finally Tony looked down at the S.H.I.E.L.D. file about Advanced Idea Mechanics with a frown and then asked: “How long did you know about this?”

“We actually had some information about arms deals we couldn't directly trace and the word A.I.M. turned up a couple of times, so we looked into it. It's what we do.” Fury looked at him with that neutral expression that usually meant he wasn't going to give out any more substantial information. Natasha was just leaning against a wall behind Fury, who was also still standing and gazing down on him, looking disinterested and not at all concerned with the conversation.

So Tony felt the need to ask: “And?”

“And nothing. All leads turned up _nothing_. Killian obviously knew what he was doing. Or someone knew how to cover their tracks.”

Tony leaned back, scanning the file again for some of the more relevant information, trying to read between the lines, and then looked back at Fury. “This wasn't _all_ Killian, was it?”

“Probably not. A.I.M. seems to be a _bigger_ project.”

“I see. Thanks for letting me know,” he said, knowing full well that Fury had no reason to give him any kind of information he didn't want to give, and started to get up, deciding that his part of this information exchange was over, because he really wanted to get back to work.

“Isn't there something more you want to tell _us_ about this _Extremis_ virus?” Fury asked while Tony was still straightening out his suit jacket.

He looked up casually, surprised that this line of questioning hadn't started earlier and just held Fury's gaze for a moment, trying to keep Natasha in his line of sight too. She hadn't moved, was still leaning against the wall, her arms crossed in front of her chest, but her eyes were on him now, studying and probably filing away his reactions. “There's nothing more to tell,” he said, and was careful to keep his voice firm. They already had their own ideas about the truth anyway and he just wanted to make clear where he stood.

Fury went on staring at him as if he was trying to figure something out and then asked: “So someone outsmarts you, turns people into living bombs and nearly succeeds in killing the president and...”

“We've been over this. I think we've been over this twice. Just now actually,” he interrupted before Fury could get any more words out. “Nobody outsmarted me.”

“But turned people into living weapons.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “ _I_ didn't invent it.”

“So, you're saying you have no idea how A.I.M. did it?”

No, of course, that was not at all what he was saying, and they both knew it, which was why Tony didn't see the need to actually admit or deny anything. “I was busy not dying. And then I was busy saving the president – which you know, technically more your job than mine – and then I nearly lost Pepper. I love science. It's my thing. But I was a bit preoccupied at the time.”

Although he didn't let his attention drift away from Fury he could see the way Natasha was looking at him now and the slight quirk of her lips. Fury still looked unimpressed. “You were occupied _at the time_. You've had time since then, Stark.”

“What he's trying to say is: Is Pepper alright?” Natasha finally spoke.

Tony looked over at her, his own lips forming a small smile of his own. But his throat was suddenly horribly dry when he said: “She's fine. She's going to stay fine. It's under control.”

Natasha's eyes focused on his chest for the briefest of moments, right on the point where usually even with this much light in the room, she'd see the light of the arc reactor shine through his shirt. Their eyes met again and she asked: “Are you?”

“Better than fine,” he answered truthfully and was probably giving her the missing piece of the puzzle with his answer.

She nodded, face blank but obviously amused, and looked at Fury, who still looked at him gravely. “Is this the last we'll hear of Extremis then?”

Tony shrugged, hoping the answer was yes, but quite sure it might actually be no, because there were just some things you couldn't hide when you actually worked with other people. And although there had not yet been another crisis big enough for them to come together and do some more avenging, that didn't mean they weren't keeping track of each other when they could.

Natasha was very nearly smiling at him now. Fury leaned forward and waved a hand in the air in a dismissive gesture. “Alright, go, before I think of something else.” Tony didn't need to be told twice, just turned to finally leave and be free of the depressingly sparse S.H.I.E.L.D. briefing room. “You'll have to give me something better than Helicarrier upgrades for this, Stark, do you hear me?” Fury's voice trailed after him.

He didn't bother to look back, but called over his shoulder. “Do you have a use for flying cars? I was seriously bored last week.”

* * *

Tony wasn't even surprised when a little later Barton walked into the shared living area on the floor that Pepper was calling the “Avenger's Club House”. Tony had actually been waiting for Banner and in the boredom of waiting had started to take apart their television set. “Here about the arrows?” he asked, when he noticed it wasn't Bruce who was suddenly looking over his shoulder.

“No. But where can I get my name down for one of those flying cars?”

Tony looked up and set down his screwdriver on the table. “I have no idea how S.H.I.E.L.D. does these things. And they haven't really taken me up on that offer yet. Ask Fury?”

Barton shrugged and crouched down, so he was on eye-level with Tony, who was sitting on the floor in the middle of what was left of the TV, electronic parts scattered all around him. “What are you doing?”

“I was bored,” Tony said, defensively. But Barton wasn't focused on the scraps and parts on the floor, he was staring at Tony's chest in a way, that Tony was becoming tired of very quickly. The novelty hadn't quite worn off yet, but the _staring_ was really annoying.

“Thor will be sad to know that there's no faux piece of trapped lightning embedded in your chest anymore, Stark. Don't you ever think of other people?”

“The handsome god of stormy weather will get over it.”

Barton watched him, picking his screwdriver back up and getting back to work. “Will you?”

“I'm all over it, thanks. So over it that I'm going to change the subject now, in fact.”

“Will that TV work again?”

Tony shrugged. “The point hadn't been to make it work again, actually. I'll get a new one. This one will end up... something else. Part of something else.”

“Okay.” Barton stood up and flung himself down on the sofa, watching Tony work.

“You know there is a television set on your private floor?” Tony asked just to make sure.

“Yes. I've been living there for the last three weeks.”

“Three weeks? We've been living here for two weeks and haven't seen a trace of you.”

“19 days,” Barton said smugly.

“What?” Tony looked up, startled.

Barton smirked. “You and Ms. Potts have been back here at the Tower for 19 days.”

“Mr. Barton is right, sir,” JARVIS informed him helpfully.

Tony stared at him, trying to figure out what exactly he was missing here. But then what had he been expecting from someone who worked with the Black Widow? “Since that feisty assistant of mine left... What was her name? Natalie Rushmore?” he asked.

“Rushman.”

“Yeah, right. Well, since she left nobody has taken the job and so nobody is keeping track of these things. Are you job hunting? You seem to be quite good with keeping track.”

Barton chuckled. “I'm not going to wear high-heels. But if there's a flying car in it for me, I can take your phone calls and make your appointments and shoot arrows at stuff.”

“I am keeping track, sir,” JARVIS said, sounding only slightly sarcastic. Tony immediately thought he should try and give him the ability to sound more disgruntled. More like Pepper when she told him he was full of himself.

“Does that mean you don't need me?” Barton asked.

“If you want the job, you might have to reconsider your stance on high-heels.”

“You wish, Stark,”

* * *

A week ago Pepper had gone back to work, opting to go on living her life as if nothing had changed. Tony understood that this was what she needed right now, that she'd go on exploring all the changes one step at a time, but that at the moment she just wanted to be the awesome CEO Pepper Potts, unenhanced and entirely normal human being, but as perfect as they come. He didn't comment on it and just let her make her own choices like once he'd had no problem to do; once - before he'd returned from three month as hostage in a war zone and actually looked beyond the assistant, who managed everything he didn't want to waste time on with efficiency and perfect judgment.

It wasn't like he didn't understand the impulse that was driving her. Losing himself in work was usually his thing, although his preferred kind of work had always gotten in the way of the kind of work Pepper was doing now.

And the way things were now, it was probably not a bad idea for the Stark Industries CEO to show she was back in charge and making plans to reorganize parts of the company, now that it seemed that the two of them would be staying in New York for the foreseeable future.

He was standing in front of the windows, his breakfast on the table behind him mostly abandoned and had JARVIS project several schematics of a possible new Malibu domicile and some of the old mansion located at 890 Fifth Avenue where he'd spent part of his childhood. He played around a bit with the virtual 3D model, refitting the lower levels into a state of the art lab and completely redesigning the second floor and entry hall.

“Sir, we have a guest,” JARVIS announced, but Tony didn't pay too much attention, trying to decide if he shouldn't just leave the room layout on this floor alone and concentrate on the rooms below. It was very likely just Bruce who was looking for someone to share numbers with anyway.

“Let him in,” he said distractedly, undoing his last change and then looked at the model again critically.

“Are you building another house?”

Surprised Tony looked up to find Steve standing only a few feet away. He looked good, dressed more casually and less like the proper soldier boy from the 1940s, and more like he was finally arriving in the here and now.

“I thought you were living here now,” Steve added, looking around the place as if he wanted to make sure it looked actually lived in, and then frowned at the abandoned breakfast.

“Seeing as my Malibu house drowned, this place seemed like the most comfortable option for the moment, yes,” Tony said with a wave. “I'm just playing around. This place is great, but it wasn't supposed to be a permanent home. More like a landmark with a place to stay in when we were back in New York.”

Steve nodded and walked towards the table, visibly searching for something to say.

Tony quit the program and followed him over. “Something wrong? Need help?”

Steve looked back at him and then literally looked him over. “I was away for a few weeks.”

“Away?” Tony chuckled. “Is this something I should know about?”

“No. I was just... Forget it. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Tony knew he was staring, a little surprised by the admission. He gestured for Steve to sit down and for a moment it looked like he really wanted to protest and just turn around and leave, now that he'd seen Tony with his own two eyes and made sure that he was perfectly fine. But then he sat down at the table and looked down at his hand. Tony took his own seat and then said: “I'm okay. Are you?”

Steve startled and then looked at him with a frown. “Why wouldn't I be?”

“I have no idea. Isn't that what you ask old people? I didn't have grandparents when I was growing up, so I'm lacking some first hand experience here.”

A snort and then Steve shook his head and leaned back to get a better look at him. “How can you be so purposefully annoying? Challenging a terrorist on television? Giving him your home address? Painting an even bigger target all over yourself?”

Tony smiled at Steve's exasperated tone, remembering both Pepper and Rhodey giving him the same kind of speeches, before they had known that he'd pointed this gun on himself many years ago. “That was actually the fun part.” Then he thought about this statement for a moment and added: “The challenging at least.”

Steve sighed and looked at him with a slightly uneasy expression. Tony had expected him to be a bit more angry. “Your supposed to be a genius,” he said accusingly.

“I am. But nobody said that that was actually extending to my social skills or, you know, my common sense.”

“No kidding.” Steve shook his head and for a moment he leaned back and looked to the ceiling, probably to take a moment to really center himself. When he met Tony's eyes again he nodded. “So, you're okay? And Pepper is okay? And it wasn't as bad as it looked?”

Tony cringed a little and admitted: “It was exactly as bad as it looked. Probably worse. But I think I've come full circle now. I feel... good.” He wasn't about to impart all the emotional details on _Captain America_. Not if he could help it. He'd already bored Bruce with it...

Steve focused on him with another deep frown and the next moment a hand shot out, reaching for him. It happened so fast, that Tony had no time to think about what he was doing, just went with his instincts and evaded. Steve stared at his hand hovering in the air where it should have connected with Tony's chest by now, then up at Tony, who was still sitting in his chair, but had twisted away. Fast. The frown deepened. Tony held himself still now and tried to wipe the serious expression from his own face.

“You startled me,” he said evasively and knew he sounded like a defensive six year old.

“Sorry,” Steve said and moved his hand to touch the front of his shirt slowly, feeling the flesh and bones beneath and nothing more. “I was worried because I couldn't see the light... What happened to your arc reactor?”

“Don't need it anymore.”

Steve pulled back and looked at him. “Are you going to tell me what happened? Really?”

“The short version is: I fixed myself.”

“You _fixed_ yourself? And the long version...?”

It was his turn to look up at the ceiling. “Is _long_. So long in fact that Banner fell asleep on me when I...”

“I'm an old man. I like stories. Humor me. Tell me why the next time you nearly kill yourself I won't have a little light telling me whether your heart is still beating.”

There was a tell-tale tensing of Steve's jaw and slightly gauging look in his eyes that told Tony that Steve wasn't going to budge. He wanted to know. Because to him this was a team thing, a friendship thing. So Tony made a throw away gesture with his left hand and rolled his eyes. “You won't have one, because you won't need one, okay? But I'll tell you. Just be warned. This story starts in 1999, so you better make sure you don't have any appointments today. Because this is the one final time I'm telling it. Everyone else can wait for the biography.”

Steve leaned back and made himself a little more comfortable, but looked at him, his jaw set, the picture of stubbornness. “I have a lot of time.”

Tony thought it sounded a bit like a challenge, and shrugged. He could deal with challenges.

* * *

He was working in one of the labs he'd set up for Banner's research when Rhodey strode in like he owned the place, all neat and in uniform. Bruce looked up briefly from where he was working on the other side of the lab, but seemed to relax instantly when he recognized Rhodey. They nodded at each other, before Rhodey settled his gaze back on Tony.

“So you found a way to stabilize the Extremis to fix Pepper and thought the next best thing to do was to inject yourself with it?” Rhodey didn't smile, but sounded a little amused.

“It seemed like the thing to do.”

Rhodey shook his head.

“No, honestly. It was the thing to do, Rhodey,” Tony said with conviction. “It was time to fix myself. And I finally could.”

Rhodey was standing across from him, still wearing his uniform, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was looking Tony over for a moment, probably thinking this through. “Did it work?”

Tony frowned. “Of course it worked or why do you think I'm walking around without an arc reactor these days?”

“That's not what I was asking, you idiot.”

Banner had turned around to watch them and Tony looked over at him and twisted his mouth a little.

“If your going to tell the whole story _again_ I'll go an grab something to eat,” Bruce said.

“I don't need to hear the whole story. I was around for most of it. And I know him well enough to fill in most of the blanks, thank you.”

“You weren't around for most of it,” Tony told him and then looked over at Bruce. “But he does know the story, so I won't have to bore you again.”

Bruce shrugged and turned back to his work. “I need a _No talking in the lab_ sign. In red – or green.”

Rhodey looked over his shoulder at him and then back at Tony with a frown. He was probably asking himself whether they were really annoying Bruce or not. Rhodey and Bruce didn't know each other very well, so Rhodey had no way of telling when the unimposing scientist was actually going to be annoyed enough to turn into a frightening green rage giant. Tony smiled to himself and let Rhodey wonder for another minute. “We'll be out of your hair in a minute, Dr. Jekyll. No reason to call on Mr. Green to get rid of us,” Tony joked and Rhodey, who was used to his friend lacking any kind of self-preservation instincts tensed a little.

Bruce chuckled. “You're not as annoying as you think, Tony.”

Rhodey relaxed again. “Oh, he knows exactly how annoying he is. He's turned it into an art form.”

“Right,” Tony said, not at all put off by his friend’s words. “Finished here. If you have anything else to fix, install or upgrade, you know where to find me.”

Banner just waved a hand at him to finally get out. Which Rhodey seemed to think was hilarious.

“I should probably just give this tower over to the Avengers,” Tony mused out loud. “I invited Banner to live here anyway and Barton is actually using the new training room...”

“You could give them the mansion and live here with Pepper.”

“I could give them this place and live with Pepper in the mansion. When it's ready. Not now obviously.”

“Obviously.”

The were taking the elevator down to Tony's garage, because that was were he'd also built himself a wonderful workshop and recently added space for the few remaining armors.

“So, honestly, Tony,” Rhodey said and pointed at his chest. “How are you?”

“I'm fine, stop worrying. I've never been so fine in my life.”

“Really?”

He leaned against the cool surface of the elevator and then looked at Rhodey, trying to make him understand. “I know I have a track record of saying I'm fine when I'm not. When I'm really, really not. But this is it. I did have the means to fix my heart and I did it.”

“That's not all you did though? We're talking about Extremis here. I've seen up close what it can do.”

“It's not all, no, but for me it was important. The arc reactor was like a crutch. It was helping me stay up when I couldn't do it on my own. I needed it,” he said and the elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the darkness of his new workshop. “But the truth for me is: It was an open wound. Something that never healed. And I needed it to _not heal_ , because I _needed_ it to remind myself who I'd been and who I wanted to be. I needed it so I could move on and change my life. But I think I'm there now. I can do this without the painful reminder now, finally.“

Tony walked towards the middle of the workshop and JARVIS automatically turned on the lights and it was like the place was coming to life. But Rhodey wasn't paying attention to any of it, keeping all his attention on Tony. “Is that why you never did look into fixing your heart before?”

“Maybe,” Tony admitted. “Maybe I wasn't ready to move forward in that way.”

“For someone who usually is all about pushing technology to the next level this took you an amazing amount of time.”

“What can I say? Science is complicated.”

“Ah, that must be why you nearly died from Palladium poisoning,” Rhodey said with a smug purse of the lips.

“Well, dying is kind of distracting. But sometimes it puts things in perspective.”

“As your good friend I should point out that normal people don't have close calls of that kind as often as you do.”

Tony shrugged. “I'm usually the first to tell you that I'm one of a kind. But there's the fact that I know people who have these kind of close calls quite frequently. Or at least sometimes. Some of them live here now.”

* * *

He landed on top of Stark Tower, sending the armor away with a thought. Pepper was standing just a few feet away, watching him with a smile.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello yourself. How was your day?”

“Pretty busy, but rewarding. What are you doing out here?”

She smiled a little wider and stepped up to him, embracing him and leaning against his chest. “I was watching the city, waiting for you, you know?”

“I always come back.”

She touched his chest, stroking her hand along the imaginary circle that had once been there. “I kind of miss it,” she said softly. “Don't you?”

He didn't. He honestly didn't. But everyone else seemed to be noticing its absence more than he did. It had been a part of him, a very visible, noticeable part of him, and in a way it had been the thing that made him Iron Man in other people's eyes, when he hadn't been wearing the armor. “It kept me alive, but I'm not sad that I don't need it anymore.”

Pepper peeked up at his face. Her eyes were dark. “It changed you.” Her voice wasn't shaking, but there was a surprising note of fear in it. She was still coping with the changes Extremis had forced on her – and even with the adjustments Tony had made to it and all the stabilizing, it was still there, forcing her to acknowledge how she was slightly different now.

“I changed myself, Pep,” he said, deciding not to force her to talk about it just yet. Because he knew now that they had time. They'd still be here tomorrow. They'd still be together. Things were working, even when some things were complicated and not perfect. “I just changed myself again. Just a little. For the better.”

She tightened her embrace, but didn't say anything.

“I'm still me,” he said, “and you're still you. And as long as I have you, I'll be okay.”

She nodded against his chest and sighed. “I'll still miss it a little.”

“You won't miss it as much when you'll wake up with your face pressed into my chest - kind of like you're doing at the moment - and notice how that's not uncomfortable at all.”

This finally made her chuckle. “You always think of the bedroom, don't you?”

“I do think of robots and suits of armor and bio feedback and sometimes of interior design and cars and science papers. Occasionally. Right now actually.”

“You charmer.”

“You knew what you were getting into.”

She playfully hit him against the right shoulder. “You're right, of course. I knew. And I'm still here.”

“So am I.”

“Then maybe this _is_ actually finally working out.”

He shrugged and smiled at her. “It is.”

And the truly wonderful thing about it was, that it wasn't scaring him at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Just because I know this will be jossed sooner rather than later: This was written after _Iron Man 3_ and before any of the movies after that had come out.


End file.
